GGA Architecture PLLC

MGM brought us such cinematic classics as “Doctor Zhivago” and “The Wizard of Oz.” It’s also the studio behind the recent bombs “Death Wish” and “Overboard.” Yet MGM begins all its films, regardless of quality, with its legendary lion roaring beneath the pretentious phrase “Arts Gratia Artis,” or “art for art’s sake." Publicist Howard Dietz, in true Hollywood fashion, dreamt it up to give MGM’s popcorn flicks an altruistic veneer. But Tinseltown’s raison d’être is really art for commerce’s sake.

The same holds true in New York—except here it’s real estate that reigns supreme. Manhattan’s skyline is an outdoor museum boasting the world’s greatest collection of modern architecture. But this unparalleled, glorious skyscape is just the fortuitous byproduct of a whole lot of shady scheming and dreaming.

Frank Lloyd Wright once called the skyline "a great monument, I think, to the power of money and greed.” The price we pay for living in the capital of culture is putting up with the real estate scene’s egomaniacal movers and shakers. In New York, the phrase that pays is “ars gratia verus praedium”—art for real estate’s sake.

Consider a tale of two buildings, both rich: the Jean Nouvel-designed 53W53 and the Gordon Bunschaft-designed 9W57.

These two buildings are at the top of any "greatest modern buildings in New York" list. They’re from different eras, with 9W57 dating to the 1970s and 53W53 going up now. But both buildings feature brash and self-confident designs worthy of a city famous for tough-talking strivers. Or, as John Lennon sang in 1974, they’re “Noo Yawkers, with a Noo Yawk walk and a Noo Yawk talk.”

Many Manhattan towers take the easy way out by using the ubiquitous “wedding cake” design to comply with New York’s byzantine setback regulations. But Nouvel and Bunschaft made 53W53 and 9W57 unique by using gentle curves that embrace, rather than repel, such requirements.

Height is rarely accompanied by grace; picture Patrick Ewing or Kristaps Porzingis lumbering up the court. But 53W53 and 9W57, in achieving both great height and great beauty, transcend their ordinary functions with their form.

And unlike the treasures at the Met and MoMA kept behind exorbitant admission fees, 53W53 and 9W57 are works of art that we can experience just by looking up.

But at what cost?

53W53 is only being built because MoMA made the cold and calculated decision to demolish its neighbor, the charming American Folk Arts Museum building. MoMA then sold the property to a consortium that includes the Pontiac Land Group, Goldman Sachs, and Gerald Hines’ firm.

It’s at 9W57 where we really see how art is at the mercy of money. The ground floor features the Sheldon Solow Art and Architecture Foundation. It’s where the real estate magnate stores masterpieces from bold-faced names like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sandro Botticelli, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró and Vincent van Gogh. But Solow is not Cosmo de’Medici, the great Florentine renaissance patron. Philippe de Montebello, currently at the Acquavella Galleries after a storied reign at the Met, diplomatically observed that Solow “is somebody who buys things he reacts very strongly to, not in an academic way.”

More like a tax-avoidance way. As Crain’s Joe Anuta reported, Solow tells the IRS that his museum’s charitable—and thus tax-exempt—mission is to “display artwork for exhibition to the public.” Yet Solow does not welcome pedestrian New Yorkers into his taxpayer-subsidized vault.

As Nonprofit Quarterly asks, “Are we looking at a charitable operation or a vanity purchase with a built-in tax break?” Solow’s art heist is audacious. But, despite the outcry sparked by Anuta's article, Solow still has the last laugh.

But there is a slender silver lining to all of these shady schemes. It’s that we get to live amidst the world’s most diverse collection of modern architecture. From 9W57’s swooping embrace to Hudson Yards’ hulking giants, to the underwhelming and overhyped 1 World Trade Center, the good, the bad, and the ugly are all on display with no curator or entrance fee needed. A simple stroll around Manhattan offers a more rewarding artistic experience than whatever Solow is shielding.

Solow’s shenanigans are nothing new to a seasoned New Yorker. They have been a part of the city’s real estate scene ever since Peter Minuit swindled his way into the island of Mannahata. We can’t do much about New York’s real estate robber barons. So the least we can ask is that they give us interesting buildings to look at. Or, as Christopher Hitchens—another Englishman in New York—put it, “the one unforgivable sin is to be boring.”